Compare FY 09 and Proposed FY 10 HUD Fair Market Rents and Changes for All 4,700+ Areas Nationwide.

The two things virtually all want to know when proposed HUD Fair Market Rents are published are:

1. "How much will the FMR change for X area
   
2. How does that compare to the change for other areas?"

After ALL of these years, it is amazing that HUD's PDR still does NOT directly publish data showing that change and allowing that comparison. (Maybe it's a "FMR envy" kind of thing?).

So....I took the same kind of data I used to construct the quick Oregon FMR rent comparison I did on Friday (HERE) and did a comparison of FY 2009 HUD FMR's with Proposed FY 2010 FMR's for ALL areas of the country--a total of 4,763 areas by my count.

You can find this complete NATIONWIDE listing of FY 2009 vs. Proposed FY 2010 HUD FMR's comparisons in the new Excel workbook HERE. (Read Tip 8 below to help you download/open this Excel 2007 formatted file).

This is the FIRST time I have ever seen a national spreadsheet that shows these direct FMR comparisons with the prior FMR year. Once the Proposed FMR's are published in the Federal Register I will make a formal comment that HUD use this kind of format in ALL future annual FMR comparisons. In a future blog post I will include a link to my Federal Register comment and also a link that will allow you to comment on the proposed FMR's. I will include supportive draft language that you can easily copy and paste into a comment that I encourage you to submit IF you like the comparisons that my Excel workbook permits.

Data Source: I added a HUD Region data field, a list order field, and the 09-10 change fields, but all other data was downloaded from HUD's FMR web page HERE.

Interesting Tidbits from the Data: (Comparing FY 2009 and Proposed FY 2010 FMR's):

• Biggest % INCREASE is 16% for Anne Arundel County, Baltimore County, Carroll County, Harford County, Howard County (ex. Columbia City),Queen Anne's County, Baltimore city in Maryland.
  
• Biggest % DECREASE is 6.6% for San Diego County in California.
  
• HIGHEST FY 2010 Proposed FMR is $1,800 for Darien, Greenwich, New Canaan, Norwalk, Stamford,Weston, Westport, Wilton in Fairfield County in Connecticut.
  
• LOWEST FY 2010 Proposed FMR is $399 for Adjuntas Municipio,Coamo Municipio, Culebra Municipio, Guánica Municipio, Guayanilla Municipio, Jayuya Municipio,Las Marías Municipio,Maricao Municipio, Peñuelas Municipio,Salinas Municipio,Santa Isabel Municipio, Utuado Municipio, Vieques Municipio, Yauco Municipio in Puerto Rico.
• Median FMR for FY 2009 was $643; the Proposed FY 2010 median FMR is $668, a 3.9% increase.
  

Tips for Using the Data:

1. DON"T just start printing the entire document, it's 100+ pages.
2. DO use the filtering arrows at the top of the columns to select the data of interest--I.E. Filter by state, or specific county etc.
3. Filtering can ALSO be used to select the HIGHEST or LOWEST FMR's or FMR changes, or FMR values higher than an input value etc.
4. Before you start filtering data, it is a good idea to copy worksheet and work with the copy so you still have the data in its original alpha by state/county order
5. Once you have filtered what you want you can then either try to print directly the filtered information OR copy and paste it into a new worksheet for more data analysis or organization.
6. It is easy to add a Pivot Table to the workbook for additional analysis.
7. Several geography columns are hidden to save space, you can use unhide command to reveal those columns, but width will be wider than legal sized paper.
8. The estimator is in Excel 2007 file format. Some users report when they save Excel 2007 files they end up with a compressed .zip file extension. My suggestion is to download and save the file to your pc. Find the downloaded file, and if necessary, change the .zip extension to Excel 2007 extension (.xlsx), and THEN open the file with Excel).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.